


hold on for your life (i'm not alright)

by majorkirastan



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Jonathan Sims Is Bad At Feelings, M/M, hurt/comfort except the hurt is just canon, martin gets nightmares but he also gets a hug, post-159
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:22:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21841171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majorkirastan/pseuds/majorkirastan
Summary: In the other room, Jon startles awake, his chest tight. Beholding loves his nightly dance through the relived fear of others, yes, but it feels a distress whose source is so much closer, so much more tangible, and the Ceaseless Watcher is hungry. And so, as Jon gasps in heavy breaths of the cold night air, he Knows with a dizzying rush that Martin is afraid, that Martin is Alone. He stands slowly, makes his way to where Martin is sleeping, and softly pushes the door open.(martin may have been pulled out of the lonely, but he's not quite free of its emptiness and self-loathing. for his part, jon is extraordinarily bad at handling the messiness that comes alongside emotions. but they have each other, and perhaps that is enough.)
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 18
Kudos: 288





	hold on for your life (i'm not alright)

**Author's Note:**

> "there was only one bed" is out and "there was more than one bed, but they chose to share anyway" is in. its about the gay yearning and the tenderness,
> 
> also, this fic contains spoilers for mag159/the beginning of mag160, and deals with themes of self-hatred and isolation. nothing too graphic but i'm giving y'all a heads up just in case!!

Martin is a big person, always has been. For a long while, he finds it uncomfortable; he is reminded too closely of his father, of the kind of person who _hurts_ others, and seeing himself is a stinging reminder of how easily he could do the same. But he’s grown into himself, and by now he’s rather made peace with it. To combat the way he sees his father when he looks in the mirror, he takes to visualizing himself as a sort of protector; he’s always rather fancied himself as the sort of person to wrap others up in his arms and keep them safe, and it feels good to know that he could shield other people if they needed it.

It’s not quite the truth, but it’s a well-intentioned sort of self-deception, and Martin finds himself soothed by the idea of comforting others with an oversized hug.

The notion calms his nerves, helps him sleep easier at night; he finds it calming to clutch a pillow tight to his chest and imagine himself holding someone who needs it. Sometimes he pictures a very abstract person in his arms, other times it’s a character from something he’s been into lately, and sometimes, when he’s teetering on the boundary between sleep and wakefulness, he imagines a person who he knows, a person who very much needs to be held close. When he’s sleeping on the spare cot in the Archives, he finds himself conjuring up images of Jon wrapped up in his arms, and as everything that goes bump in the night makes its mark on the poor Archivist, Martin finds himself drifting off to the idea of Jon more and more often. It’s unrealistic, as far as fantasies go, but there is something deep inside Martin that wants to comfort Jon, to make everything okay, at least for a short while.

That isn’t what happens, though.

When Martin becomes Lonely, he stops thinking about other people. It’s out of necessity, more than anything; to imagine the intimate closeness that Martin fantasizes about, well — with Jon in a coma and with his own sense of self fading away, the concept is nearly devastating. He still imagines himself as a sort of protector, because he can’t bear to look at his own reflection and picture his father’s face leering back, but it’s abstract, nebulous. He has so little left that by now he isn’t sure who exactly it is he’s protecting.

And then there’s Jon.

There’s Jon, holding onto him and pulling him from the clinging fog of Loneliness. Jon, softly reaching up a hand to trace Martin’s cheeks, wet with tears that Martin doesn’t know he’s crying. Jon, radiant and vivid and so, so strong. And the two of them go _home_.

The safe house has two bedrooms. Jon takes one and Martin takes the other, both of them curling up underneath thick, patterned duvets that are uncharacteristically soft for a place that belonged to Daisy.

For the first time in months, Martin feels that old desire for closeness gripping him, but something about it sits tight in his chest with a sharp, prickling _wrongness_ that he’s never felt before. He brushes it off as a side effect of the Lonely, clutches a pillow close to his chest in a poor facsimile of human touch, and lets himself drift off to sleep.

The dreams — if they can be called dreams — are unexpected.

Martin’s never been one for nightmares, not really; he’s had his fair share, especially after all that’s happened with the Institute, but he’s fairly good at discerning reality from dreamscape. When he wakes up, pulse racing from a nighttime terror that felt all too real for comfort, he knows that he is simply reliving something long since past. But now, as he pulls the covers further over himself against the darkness of the too-empty room, he isn’t sure whether he’s awake or not. He feels himself standing in the cloying tides of the Lonely, the rolling emptiness rising past his ankles, his knees, higher and higher, and he does not know whether he’s dreaming or whether he never really left the Lonely at all. He feels a heavy, desperate sob grapple its way from his chest, but already the emotion is dulled in the inescapable throb of Loneliness. He drops to his knees, ready for the Lonely to wash over him and let him disappear entirely. He sees the bedroom now, and has the detached thought that it looks like a nice place to call home, but it’s obscured with a thick mist that is filling his head, making it hard to think.

He knows that he is alone. He knows that nobody loves him — why would they? He knows that he is worthless, that he is unloveable, that he is pathetic for hoping that anyone might care about him. He feels the haze pour into his lungs, and he knows that this is still better than what he deserves.

⁂

In the other room, Jon startles awake, his chest tight. Beholding loves his nightly dance through the relived fear of others, yes, but it feels a distress whose source is so much closer, so much more tangible, and the Ceaseless Watcher is _hungry_. And so, as Jon gasps in heavy breaths of the cold night air, he Knows with a dizzying rush that Martin is afraid, that Martin is Alone. He stands slowly, makes his way to where Martin is sleeping, and softly pushes the door open.

Martin is there, or at least Martin is mostly there.

He’s sitting on the bed, and Jon swears that in places he can see through Martin’s body, as if instead of a man he is the mere suggestion of a man. He looks up when the door creaks open, and for a horrible moment he sees nothing more than the Eye, watching his pain, reveling in the self-loathing that is pooling like lead in his stomach, delighting in the way he is fading into emptiness and despair. But it’s Jon. Of _course_ it’s Jon. And with the realization, Martin snaps back into himself.

 _“Sorry,”_ he whispers. _“I didn’t— mean to wake you up, I’m sorry, you should just go—“_

Jon sees the tears rolling down his cheeks, hears the tremor in his voice, and he doesn’t need Beholding to know how much Martin is hurting. Hell, he’s felt it himself more nights than he’d care to admit, but seeing Martin so empty again makes something within him break. And so, instead of turning and making his way back to his own bedroom, he takes a step towards Martin, then another, and when he finds himself sitting down next to Martin’s indistinct outline, he is far less surprised at himself then he perhaps should have been.

The silence is heavy, broken only by Martin’s muffled tears, and Jon chokes out a murmured “I’m here. I came,” the sound impossibly loud in the quiet darkness.

He carefully lifts a hand, rests it lightly on Martin’s shoulder with a soft _“Martin,”_ and it is then that Martin crumbles entirely. He collapses into Jon’s arms with such a wounded, fragile movement that Jon feels tears welling up in his own eyes at how desperately Martin is aching for someone to be near him, for someone to see him and know him and _love_ him for the man that he has chosen to be.

Martin is a big person, always has been, but when he buries his face in Jon’s chest, murmuring a litany of apologies for being such a waste of space, he suddenly seems so, so small.

Jon is not very good at comforting crying people. He finds himself so uncomfortable with the messy humanity of it all that, if at all possible, he tries to avoid the scenario entirely. Perhaps, had it been anyone else, he would already have retreated back to his own bedroom, attempted to forget the whole thing had even happened, but it’s _Martin_. (God, he realizes with a pang, he really does _love_ Martin, far more than anything or anyone else. It’s love that sent him into the Lonely in the first place, love that is knotted deep in his stomach now. For all the humanity that has been stolen from him by the Eye, he still loves Martin.) He is uncertain in his movements when he moves his hands to rest on Martin’s back, uncertain when he slowly traces delicate patterns across Martin’s heaving shoulders, uncertain when he whispers “it’s okay, it’s okay, Martin, I’m here” in a long, gasping rush. But Martin doesn’t notice the way Jon’s hands tremble, nor the way that Jon’s voice quavers in its reassurances. He notices the gentleness in Jon’s touch, the tender way Jon whispers his name, the way that Jon is subconsciously tracing heart shapes over his upper back and arms. And he knows that he is loved. He knows that he loves Jon, and that Jon loves him, and that he _deserves_ that love. The pain and hurt and Loneliness drain out of him, leaving him tired and empty and, for the time being, _safe_. Jon holds him tightly, still murmuring comfort through his own tears, and Martin’s breathing stills to a steady, regular tempo.

Martin has always fancied himself the one who protects others, but now Jon is the one holding him. The touch is unsure, and soft, and filled with so much love that Martin feels it pouring into Jon’s every motion. It is gentle in a way that Martin has not felt in so long, and he can’t help but to smile, face still close against Jon’s chest.

Jon doesn’t go back to the other bedroom that night. Not even when Martin drifts back off to sleep, not even when he becomes solidly, incontestably _present_ again, not even when it becomes clear that the nightmares have faded. Jon lays there, still holding onto Martin, and he lets himself feel the warm blush in his cheeks as he admires the gentle, kind softness of Martin’s face. He feels the slow rise and fall of Martin’s breath, matches his own to the rhythm, and he lets himself fall asleep curled up beside the man who he is so wholly, undeniably in love with.

They don’t talk about it when they wake up entangled in each others’ limbs, so close that it’s not clear where one ends and the other begins. They don’t talk about it when their eyes meet and instead of getting up, they pull one another closer. They don’t talk about it when Jon presses his forehead up against Martin’s, when he runs a feather-light touch over Martin’s cheek, when he is unable to bite back a smile that is mirrored on Martin’s face.

But the second bedroom remains unused after that.


End file.
